Photos: Wild horses rounded up for Rapa das Bestas

July 9, 2012, 12:29 p.m.

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Photo: Denis Doyle/Stringer/Getty Images

All the wild horses

Wild horses are rounded up from the mountains of Sabucedo for Rapa das Bestas, a traditional Spanish festival. During the festival — the name of which translates to "Shearing of the Beasts" — onlookers gather to watch as men and women wrestle the animals to the ground with their bare hands to cut off the horses' manes and tails and to brand the younger horses.

While some critics say the more than 400-year-old tradition is cruel, others say that it provides an opportunity to identify ill horses in need of treatment and to relieve the animals from heat trapped by their manes and tails.